ABSTRACT
Background Throughout the 1995-96 academic year, students — primarily, but not exclu sively, students of color — had been urging the addition of the field of Ethnic Studies to the curriculum at Columbia University. In February, they briefly occupied the office of Dean of Columbia College Austin Quigley. By spring, students were demanding that the university establish a separate Depart ment of Ethnic Studies.1 In a four-page leaflet (called “What Is Ethnic Studies?”) that the students circulated around the campus in March, they drew on language from a University of Colorado at Boulder document to explain the field:
The document goes on to state that, even though the field is called Eth nic Studies, scholars in this area . .recognize distinctions [among] race, ethnicity and culture. Racially defined groups in the U.S. have a social trajec tory and outcome quite distinct from white or European ethnic, religious or cultural standards, such as Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, Italian Ameri cans [and] Polish Americans. Ethnic Studies scholars understand that race is not just another type of ethnicity, and that the social phenomena of institu tionalized racism maintains a sharp divide between ‘whites’ and ‘peoples of color’ in the U.S.”3 This approach to the study of the experience of racial groups in the United States differs markedly from traditional academic analy sis of the subject.
